Digital video recording/reproducing devices (hereinafter, video disk recorder) adopting disks as media have become popular. A recording format for such devices is often the Quicktime® file format or the AVI (Audio Video Interleave) file format, in consideration of compatibility with PCs (personal computers).
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2001-84705 (Tokukai 2001-84705; published on Mar. 30, 2001) discloses a method for managing contents in a disk when the above-mentioned file format for PCs is adopted. Referring to FIG. 33, an outline of this method is given. Files 2101 through 2103 of a disk 2105 correspond to respective scenes or shots being recorded, and each of these files is one Quicktime file (hereinafter, Quicktime movie file).
An index file 2100 stores a table of data in the disk 2105. There are entries corresponding to the respective Quicktime movie files. Each entry stores sets of reduced (thumbnail) image data 2111 through 2113 representing respective scenes, and the names of files including these scenes.
To display an index to the user, miniature images 2121 through 2123 produced by decoding the sets of miniature image data 2111 through 2113 in the entry are caused to appear on a contents selection display 2107. The user then selects a file that he/she wants to reproduce or edit, from these miniature images on the contents selection display 2107. When, for instance, the user selects the miniature image 2123 and instructs the reproduction of the same, a file 2103 including the contents corresponding to the miniature image 2123 is acquired and the reproduction of the contents in the file 2103 starts.
The index file 2100 includes (i) pointers to respective files storing the contents of the disk 2105 and (ii) sets of miniature image data. Thus, the contents selection display 2107 can be shown only be reading out the index file 2100 from the disk 2105, so that the time required for causing the index display (contents selection display) to appear on the screen is short. As the contents selection display 2107 is frequently called, this reduction of the time greatly lighten the frustration of the user.
It should be noted that, however, the above-mentioned conventional art could make the user feel puzzled about the management of a reference movie.
The adoption of a file formant for PCs makes it difficult to deal with large-volume video data. Since the Quicktime file format and the AVI file format manage addresses with 32-bit information, the maximum file size is 232, i.e. about 4 GB (gigabyte). The maximum recording time for recording video data with a bit rate of 10 Mbps is less than 60 minutes, thereby not to be sufficient for recording TV programs and the like.
To solve this problem, a method termed “reference movie” shown in FIG. 34 is adopted. The following will discuss this reference movie. First, a reference movie is produced by the following steps (1) through (4): (1) From the start of the recording, data is recorded to the file 2201; (2) when an amount of data in the file 2201 approaches to the maximum file size thereof, the recording to the file 2201 is stopped and subsequent data is recorded to the next file 2202; (3) when an amount of data in the file 2202 approaches to the maximum file size thereof, subsequent data is recorded to the next file 2203 in the same manner as above; (4) when the recording completes, management information is generated and stored in the file 2204.
To reproduce the recorded contents, the file 2204 is designated, and in accordance with the management information stored therein, the contents in the files 2201 through 2203 are reproduced in sequence. To allow the contents be reproduced even if the file 2204 is deleted, the files 2201 through 2203 also include the management information. In the present case, the files 2201 through 2203 are termed automatically-divided movie files, and the file 2204 is termed a control movie file.
Managing such a reference movie (automatically-divided movie and control movie) by the above-mentioned method using the index file causes a problem which will be discussed below with reference to FIG. 35. Assuming that the files 2201 through 2204 are registered to the index file 2100 with the sets of miniature image data representing the respective files, the representative images 2221 through 2224 corresponding to the files 2201 through 2204 appear on the contents selection display 2107. This makes the user feel puzzled, because four representative images appear even if the user recorded only one scene.
Also on the occasion of erasing the reference movie, four representative images appears with respect to one scene, causing the erasing process to be ambiguous.
The present invention was done to solve this problem, and thus aims for providing a data recording method, data erasure method, data display method, storage device, storage medium, and program, which allow the user to manage a reference movie by an index file, with no perplexity.